Detention
by Adonis blue
Summary: Lily is stuck in detention. Again. When McGonagall leaves the room, James manages to find his way onto Lily's desk and worms some very valuable information out of her. A chapter from It Had to Be You.


A/N: A chapter from an upcoming fic, _It Had to Be You_. I'm still in the revising stages, so let me know what you think. I wasn't planning on posting this soon, but I needed a pick-me-up. Reviews act like a deftly-cast cheering charm.

Detention

This is entirely your fault, Potter," Lily Evans growled.

Professor McGongall had just left the room for a moment.

"Hey! I didn't give you the detention."

"No, but it's your fault I'm here in the first place."

"But I didn't assign you the detention; that was Remus."

"I _know_," Lily managed to hiss through gritted teeth. "And when I get out of here, I'm going to kill him. I never thought that Remus would abuse his prefect duties. Professor McGonagall needs to know."

James stopped writing lines and looked up in horror. "You wouldn't turn him in?"

"Of course I would," Lily sniffed matter-of-factly, but some hesitation stalled her from continuing on. But only for a moment. "If someone is abusing his privileges, then he doesn't deserve to be a Prefect. And Professor McGonagall needs to know." Lily would never really turn Remus in, but she was angry enough at him to pretend and tourmenting James was just too much fun.

Lily looked up and involuntarily jumped to the back of her seat. James was on his feet now, standing threateningly close. "It would break his heart."

Much to her chagrin, Lily found that she had lost her voice. "Wh-who? Remus?"

"Of course, who do you think? You can't turn him in, Lily."

Lily froze. Was that — could it be — actual sincerity and concern in his voice?

"Look," James stepped a bit closer, "everyone gets a detention sometime. And don't you feel lucky that your first detention is with me? I can show you the ropes."

"Because of you," corrected Lily. "I'm in detention because of you — _again_." The word somehow managed to escape through her screen. Lily closed her eyes, praying that he missed it, that he somehow wasn't paying attention.

"What do you mean, again?" James was now sitting on her desk — on top of the parchment bearing the lines McGonagall had assigned her — and staring down at the side of her turned-away face.

"I didn't mean anything. And get off my parchment." Lily shoved him off of her desk. He wasn't quite prepared for this sudden action, so she managed to get him off, but (probably due to his aptitude on the Quidditch field) he remained upright.

Lily pulled the now-wrinkled paper toward her and picked up her quill to write the next set of lines: _As a prefect, if is my duty to set a good example for the other students. This includes not shouting and not creating an unnecessary scene in the common room_.

She only managed to scratch out the first two words before—

"Potter!" His hand had landed smack in the middle of her parchment.

"This isn't your first detention?" The question sounded a little too much like a statement for Lily's liking. She looked up to find him smirking at her.

Choosing what she believed was the most scathing look in her "Glare at Potter" collection, Lily narrowed her eyes and growled, "Get off, Potter, before I curse you."

"You can't. We're in detention." He waved his hand dismissively. "Unless you want to get another one?"

Lily sighed. Her glare wasn't working this time.

"You can't go around randomly cursing people."

Her blood nearly curdled and her eyes narrowed, but James blustered on, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the death stare she bestowed upon him.

"I'm not moving until you tell me. Besides," James spoke, shifting his legs and slapping his other hand on the desk theatrically, "I have a right to know, since you're claiming that I am at fault."

"Yes you are—" Lily froze. Had he really been listening that closely? Seeing the stubborn set of his chin, she collapsed into her seat, slouching as far away from him as possible and stared up at the ceiling. "Fine. Fine. If you must know. It was third year. February 13 — a Friday. I don't normally believe in that sort of rubbish, but — what are you smiling at?"

"James grin only widened. "You remember the exact date."

Lily blushed, in spite of the voice in her head that screamed at the rest of her body to stop reacting. "And why shouldn't I? It was one of the most miserable days of my academic career.

"That bad?" James asked.

"Yes," Lily stated firmly. "And it's all—"

"My fault. I know," he finished for her. "So? What did you do?"

"I still don't think—" Lily halted mid-sentence. James was now shifting his gaze pointedly between Lily and his hands, which were _still_ planted on her desk.

"Now choosing to stare at a diagram of the stages of an Animagus transformation, Lily spoke quietly. "I sassed Professor Campbell."

"Wasn't he the Defense teacher?"

"Yes," Lily replied, watching the witch on the diagram transform into a cat and back into a human again.

"Funny," the removal of one of James' hands made her look up, "I don't remember that."

"No, you wouldn't," she replied, tight-lipped, "you were skiving off class that day. Raising Merlin-only-knows what hell somewhere else in the castle where you weren't supposed to be." She said all of this very fast and was forced to suck in a deep breath after finishing.

"You noticed that I wasn't there? Lily, darling! You do care."

"Don't call me darling," she snapped angrily. He was teasing her. And it was driving her mad. "And of course I noticed. It was your fault, remember?"

"It was my fault, and I wasn't even there?" His tone remained flat.

"Yes." This time Lily leaned forward to accuse him. "Professor Campbell asked me where you were."

"Mmm-hmm." James countered her action, lessening the gap between them. "Maybe I'm just being stupid, but I don't see how that's my fault."

Lily jumped to her feet and slammed her hand down next to his. "You _are_ being stupid."

"And you're being unreasonable." Red blurred James' vision as Lily whipped her head around and crossed her arms huffily. The ends of her auburn hair had brushed his eyes, stinging them and drawing tears. He blinked, presumably to clear the pain. Yet he half-smiled through his grimace.

Lily blinked as well. Maybe she was being just a tad unreasonable. She really shouldn't yell at him until he knew exactly what he'd done and could feel properly guilty about it.

With her back still to him, Lily spoke. "He asked me where you were." James remained silent and she relented. "It was the way he asked me. 'Miss Evans, do you have any idea of the whereabouts of your little boyfriend?'" As she finished speaking, Lily clenched her jaw.

At the word "boyfriend," James started so that he nearly fell off of the desk. _Boyfriend? What boyfriend? Everyone in the school knows that Lily is off-limits. When I find the little— _Then it dawned on him. Professor Campbell was talking about _him_.

And James began to laugh. A deep, booming, raucous laugh filled with glee.

James' laughing wormed its way underneath Lily skin. It irked her. And it also made her feel a bit — a bit something. Something light. Something that she'd rather not feel.

She turned to face him, slowly, deliberately, her hands balled into fists. "And so I told him that I was not, and never would be, your girlfriend." James stopped laughing, although he still smiled annoyingly. "I also told him that anyone daft enough to presume anything of the sort had been a victim of one too many wrong jinxes," Lily finished, staring at James and daring him to laugh again. She frowned when she noticed that he wasn't even smiling anymore. In fact, he looked very far from laughing.

Disconcerted, Lily turned away once again. "Needless to say, he wasn't too happy about it."

"And he gave you a detention?" Lily didn't have to turn around to know that James was smiling again. "Well, see, that's the problem, Evans, you keep fighting it. Obviously we were destined to be together. This Campbell bloke was at least moderately intelligent."

"And that's why he caught himself on the wrong end of a curse a week before the end of term."

James paused, but only for a moment. "That wasn't really his fault. And that doesn't mean he's unintelligent. Plus," Lily did not move, but she heard James slide off of the desk and take a step or two toward her, "there are different kinds of intelligence."

Lily turned and backed up a step in shock. He was so close that, for a moment, she could smell the chocolate on his breath. "How would you know?" It came out in a whisper. Lily was severely annoyed with herself by now. In an attempt to regain her sanity, she swung around James toward her desk and parchment.

But he was too quick, and upon noticing what she was after, jumped back on top of her paper. "Oh, I know more than you think."

Lily snorted as she collapsed into her chair in exasperation. "And that would mean what, Potter? That you're at about the same level as a toddler?"

"There you go, fighting it again."

Lily looked up at him, wide eyed. She shifted do the she was sitting up strait before using the desk to push herself upward.

James simply sat there, mesmerized by the way her eyes danced. "You're right," Lily whispered softly, blowing her breath on his glasses. James hoped that she could not hear his heart pounding for escape within his ribcage.

Lily continued, almost cooing. "I'm going about this the wrong way." James couldn't move. A piece of her shiny hair fell over her eye, perfectly complementing their emerald colour.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a warning buzzer sounded. But he could not move.

James shouldn't have worried. Something — or, rather, someone — moved him. James blinked and found himself on the stone floor of the Transfiguration classroom. Now that he had "come back" to himself from wherever into the abyss he had gone, he discovered that both his wrist and rear-end stung from the impact.

Looking up, he saw Lily, triumphantly scribbling out the last line. Silently, she rose, shook her head at the sight of him on the floor, and walked over to the door. The threat of her escape wound James into action.

"Lily, wait! You can't leave, you'll get another detention." Much to his satisfaction, she halted underneath the squared doorway. Talking advantage of her inactivity, he continued. "Trust me, I've tried it. You do not want to see the colour McGonagall's face turns when she yells at you for that. It's unnatural."

A great sigh escaped Lily, whose shoulders heaved as she turned, once again to face him. "Well, you would know."

And, resigning herself to the fact that James was actually right about something, Lily settled into the desk nearest the door to wait out the remaining eternity of her detention with James Potter.


End file.
